


A Blogger's Guide To Meeting Your Idol

by Lilsciencequeen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe Blogging, F/M, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine, Fluff, No Sadness or Angst or Pain, just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 07:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13713288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsciencequeen/pseuds/Lilsciencequeen
Summary: When Fitz emailed  Jemma Simmons, asking her for an interview for his blog, he never imagined he would would get anything more than an interview from her.





	A Blogger's Guide To Meeting Your Idol

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stillsearching47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillsearching47/gifts).



> Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!! I really hope that you enjoy this one and thanks for the amazing prompt! I had so much fun working with it and sorry about it being late again!
> 
> Based on the prompt: Local Hero, Science Blog

He closed the browser, and leaned back in his seat, sighing. He crossed his arms behind his head, thinking for a number of moments before leaning forward again, opening the email that he had just closed. His eyes scanned it once again, flickering back and forth as he read the words shining from the screen.

Taking in the words that one Dr. Dr. Jemma Anne Simmons had emailed him.

And not only had she emailed him back, replying to his request, she had accepted it, saying that she would be more than happy to be interviewed for his blog.

He had emailed her about a fortnight ago, saying that he had been following her work, and she had replied to him, saying that the idea had interested her, that she would love to meet him and do an interview for his blog and when would be the best time to arrange to meet him.

Fitz just stared at the words again, reading them once more, then a second time, trying to make sure that he had read it right. Because surely, someone like Jemma Simmons, who had her first PhD. by the age of sixteen, who spent her entire life helping those who weren’t as fortunate as her, whether here or overseas, who had helped make some of the biggest advancements in medicine in recent years, winning the Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture two years previously for her advancements in helping to promote girls to get into STEM and for helping to fund projects of those who weren’t receiving funding, wouldn’t want to be interviewed by him:

A Scottish engineer who lived alone in an inky-dink apartment where the heating barely worked and whose day job involved running his own technology shop and who’s night job involved running a science blog that was filled with--as his friends assured him--somewhat questionable jokes.

But she had accepted his offer, and he knew that he should reply, so leaning forward, he told her that that was great, and that next Thursday afternoon at  _ Sky Full of Daisies  _ would be the time that suited him the most, and he (without really thinking about it or the consequences that may arise because of it) left her his mobile number at the bottom of the email, telling her that it would more than likely be easier for the two of them to contact each other that way.

It was only ten minutes after he sent the reply that his phone buzzed and his hand shot out to grab it, hesitation slightly as he unlocked it, heart beating faster with nerves in his chest.

_ Unknown Number: That would work well. _

_ Unknown Number: I’m really looking forward to meeting you. I love your blog. _

_ Unknown Number: Oh it’s Jemma by the way. _

He nearly dropped the phone when he read the second message, the one in which she mentioned that she was looking forward to meeting him, that she read his blog and that she not only enjoyed it, but she loved it. 

It just didn’t make sense to him, and he frowned, chewing on his lip as he read the messages again and again, trying to make sense of them, trying to decipher them as if there were some hidden message in it that he just couldn’t see yet. But after several minutes, he decided that if there was, he couldn’t see it, and sent her a reply, telling her that he was looking forward to it to.

***

As the days dragged by, the all-important Thursday drawing ever closer, Fitz couldn’t help but worry that something was going to go wrong, that something bad was going to happen, and on the Wednesday evening, it did.

He was just sitting down with some re-heated Thai food when he caught the tail end of some trashy teen gossip show, and the person feature was Jemma. He stared at the screen, at her, wondering what had happened to cause her to feature on this show. Whenever anyone ended up on this show, it was never good news. It took him a moment to take in what was happening; Jemma sitting on the curb, seemingly being supported by a one Bobbi Morse, a puddle of vomit on the ground in front of her. It was outside a bar, one that was just downtown that he visited whenever Hunter and Mack dragged him out, and then a taxi appeared, the two women climbing into it and pulling away and out of sight. The footage looked like it had been recorded on a mobile phone, the voice over from the reporter saying that Jemma Simmons had been caught leaving a bar early hours of Wednesday morning, seemingly drunk and questions were being asked as to whether Jemma was a good a person as everyone let on, and if she was, then why was she out drinking on a Tuesday night. 

When the story finally ended with the reporter saying that Jemma declined to answer any comments, Fitz let out a low long breath, an anger burning through him.

His heart clenched at this, knowing that after this Jemma wouldn’t want to be in public for the next few days, at least until it all died down, until the media found the next person to bully, and the message that buzzed across his phone only seconds later seemed to confirm that.

_ Jemma: I’m so sorry Fitz, especially since this is all last minute, but I don’t think that I can do tomorrow. Not after what happened today. Can we rearrange and do it sometime else instead? _

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, his thumbs twitching, as he tried to think of how best to formulate his reply, and when it came to him, the keys clacked and the message whooshed of to Jemma’s phone before he really had thought about what he had just proposed.

_ Fitz: How about you come to my flat? It’s out of the way of everything. No one will know you’re here and we don’t have to do the interview, just talk one to one. I swear nothing will be published _ .

There was no reply for nearly an hour and as each minute passed, he found the urge to throw up grew more and more before finally…

_ Jemma: Okay _ .

***

There was a knock on the door just after two that afternoon, and Fitz swallowed hard, checking himself in the mirror to make sure that everything was okay, and it looked okay, there was nothing wrong with himself that he could see, so he left the bedroom, heading out into his hall and unlocking the door, Jemma sliding in quickly before he locked it again.

“Thank you,” she whispered, pulling down the hood that she had been using to cover her face before lifting the paper bag that was in her hand. “I got some stuff from Daisy’s. Because we couldn’t go.” There was a twinge of sadness to her voice, guilt, as if she felt bad that they had had to change their plans.

“You went there?” he asked, leading her into the lounge and she shook her head.

“No, me and Daisy are friends, we went to school together, she dropped them by this morning after what happened…” She trailed off, as if she didn’t want to say anything more.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pausing by the door and spinning to face her.

She shrugged, before entering the room and collapsing into the nearest sofa, reaching up and rubbing at her face. Black bags hung under her eyes as if she hadn’t been sleeping properly in the past two days, which probably was the case. “I know you aren’t going to believe me, not after all that has happened, but I wasn’t drunk. Me and Bobbi, neither of us were…”

“She’s pregnant, I know that,” Fitz interrupted, watching as her eyes widened as she looked up at him. “I know her… I know Hunter, he texted me the other day.”

“Then you know she doesn’t want many people to know, and when the… she threw up last night, outside the bar, and she freaked. She didn’t want this to get out without her consent, her making the announcement, so I took the fall, made it look like I was drunk and now all this... they’re treating me like a bad person.”

“They shouldn't.” Fitz’s voice interrupted her, knocking her out of her thoughts and bringing her back to reality. “They shouldn’t hate on you because they thought you were drunk. Even if you were, you’re entitled to go out and  get drunk if you want to. The media, the public shouldn’t judge because you’re having fun and enjoying your life. You can’t be building orphanages all the time.”

She sighed, chewing on her lip, not really sure how to answer that. What he was saying made a lot of sense, and he was right. Logically, she knew that. She shouldn’t be hated on because she was out enjoying herself, regardless of whether she was drunk of not. She was only human, enjoying her life. But there wasn’t much she could do about it. That hate that she was getting. It was what life was like sometimes.  “It’s all just part of life,” she settled on. “Being a woman in the spotlight. A woman  _ in science _ in the spotlight. Either I do everything right or nothing at all…”

“It shouldn’t be like that. You shouldn’t be hated on simply because you’re a woman in science who is not doing science for once in your life. I’m not going to say I understand where you’re coming from but the media, they’re hard to deal with sometimes.”

“Is that why you disappeared?”

The words from Jemma, a simple question caused him to freeze, to panic and then he nodded. Because a number of years ago, he seemingly had disappeared of the face of the Earth. He was rising quickly in the world of engineering, and was often reported to be the next Tony Stark but then one day, he was just gone. He had went back to Glasgow, to look after his mother while she was ill. He had spent more time there than he had intended and by the time that he had returned to the States, he had all but been forgotten.

“I sometimes think about doing that,” Jemma mused, her voice a soft lile. “Running away from it all. I would go to Perthshire…”

“That’s in Scotland.” His lips curved up in a smirk and she couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“I know. We used to go there all the time on family holidays, some of my best memories were made there. I would buy a cottage, hide away from it all and spent the rest of my days working from there.”

“If you hate it all…” The words of the question that he began to speak were slow and cautious, as if he were terrified that he was going to overstep some boundary. “Then why did you reply to my email, say that you want to be interviewed by me.”

“Your blog isn’t like anything else Fitz, it’s… it’s simply amazing, you don’t shy away from the facts, you don’t try and change anything and you don’t discourage girls from going into science. I’ve had that my entire life, people telling me that I can’t do something simply because of who I am, and I want things to change. They  _ have _ to change. I don’t want this generation, the next generation growing up like that, being told they can’t do something, that they can’t like something simply because of who they are. I don’t want them to grow up like I did.”

“Then let’s change that,” he told her. The words strong, a vow. “The world needs to change, and we can be the ones to help do that. Together… if you want.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, a curious glint in her eyes. “You want to change the world? With me?”

He felt his cheeks flush a bright red, and somehow, he nodded, his head bobbing up and down as he tried to force his mouth to speak the words that were there. “Yeah… yeah. But only if you want to.”

She nodded, and then passed him the paperbag that was still sitting in her lap (and he couldn’t help it, he peeked inside, and was glad that he did, there was an assortment of baked goods inside) and grabbed her satchel that was now sitting at her feet. She pulled out a handful of papers, setting them on the table, before grabbing a laptop and flicking it open. “So where do you want to begin?”

***

They ended up spending hours working together, thinking through plans of how to set up more schemes within the local area, to make science, engineering, anything accessible to anyone. Jemma knew that funding was going to be an issue, but Fitz told her not to worry herself too much about that, that that was something they could think about at a later date.

It was close to five when Fitz’s stomach started to rumble, and Jemma looked up, an eyebrow raised. “Hungry?”

He shrugged. “What? I just…”

Jemma shook her head in reply to this rolling her eyes and setting down her pen and notepad. “How about we order some food in then? Indian?”

“That sounds perfect.” And so, the next number of minutes was spent with the two of them trying to decide what to order, and what would be the best way to order it. And once the food was ordered, and even through dinner, the two of them continued working, now drafting a new blog post. The two of them were close, Jemma’s leg resting against his, something that Fitz tried not to focus on, despite it being somewhat distracting.

If Jemma found it uncomfortable, she never said, but he didn’t think she really even cared or noticed. In fact, she seemed more than happy to lean over him, reaching out to point at the laptop screen and at one point, as he was typing, her head had come to rest on his shoulder.

When darkness fell outside, Jemma looked up, grabbing for her phone and unlocking it. Her face fell. “Oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

She frowned, her nose scrunching up, somewhat adorably. “I’ve missed the last bus home.”

_ Ahhhhh, that _ . Neither of the two of them had a car, or even drove for that matter. And she lived nearly forty five minutes away by public transport, so getting home by foot or taxi wouldn’t be that easy either. “Do you want to stay here?”

She frowned at him, not in anger or hurt, but more in confusion. “Stay here?”

He nodded, hoping that he didn’t stumble over his words. “I have a spare room. It’ll save you taxi money and…”

“I can’t ask that of you Fitz.”

“But I want to.”

“I don’t know how to repay you. Not just for this, but for everything you’ve done today.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I want to,” she replied, throwing his words back at him. Then her eyes widened. “How about I take you out to dinner tomorrow night, as a way of saying thank you.”

“Are you… are you asking me out?”

She lifted one shoulder in an almost lazy shrug. “Possibly.”

“Well, Jemma Simmons, I would love that.”

**Author's Note:**

> A massive shoutout to stjarna for helping me with this, and letting me borrow the coffee shop name used in multiple fics by you! I couldn't have done this without you! 
> 
> (Yes, the Rosalind Franklin Award is a real [thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_Award) )


End file.
